While being prepared to response to inquiries at the Legislative Yuan and dedicated himself to busy work, the Director-General Wu, Ching-Shan also managed to find time to pay a special trip to visit four schools in Taitung on May 8th: National Cheng Kung Commercial & Aquaculture Senior Vocational High School (CKVS), National Guan Shan Vocational Senior High School (KSVS), NTTU Affiliated Special School (NTTUSPS), and NTU Affiliated Physical Education Senior High School (NTPEHS). As 12-Year Compulsory Education is going to be launched, Wu listened to students’ voices firsthand in several meetings with them; he paid attention to schools’ briefings to understand the problems and sought solutions.

Wu arrived at Taitung Airport at around 8 AM. Before then, Huang, Nai-Hui, President of Care for New Immigrants in Taiwan Association, and Liu, Qin-Man, President of National Parents Association already arrived one flight earlier. Following the schedule arranged by Taitung County’s Student Off-Campus Guidance Committee, they headed to CKVS, the venue of “2013 Friendly Campus Student Affairs and Consultation- Study on Life Education Consultation Know-how”. At the ceremony opening, Wu encouraged those teachers in presence with the following passage: “Kids’ success is our success, and life consists of a string of hope. Teachers should water the campus with love, so kids can unleash unlimited hope. If kids develop their own skill, their lives will be full of hope.” In particular, Wu took the story of Huang, Nai-Hui, President of Care for New Immigrants in Taiwan Association, as an example. Wu used to buy lottery tickets from Huang, who was relatively young. Wu has always hoped that if he won the lottery someday, he would help him out. The truth is, Wu has never won any lottery, not to mention helping Huang out with a prize. However, schools and society did give Huang lots of opportunities to better himself; now, he has even been recognized as one of Taiwan’s Ten Outstanding Young Persons! As such, “life can be full of unlimited hope and miracles as well”. Yesterday, the school’s baseball player’s accident was well taken care of, and the class was consulted properly. That was a case in point for valuable life education.

It was already 1 PM when Wu arrived at the second stop, KSVS. Students of KSVS prepared beautiful aboriginal singing and dancing as the warmest welcome for Wu’s team’s visit. President Wu, Yi-Cheng pointed out in his briefing that KSVS is a key school for indigenous peoples. Among 400 something students, most of them are from disadvantaged family, or were brought up by their grandparents. The school fulfils indigenous peoples’ vocational education need, and actively applies funding for various kinds of projects. In recent years, the school has won several awards for academic and extracurricular performances, including MOE’s National Teaching Excellence Award— Golden Quality Award, outstanding performance in several visiting accreditations, as well as the champion for both National Croquet Competition and Aboriginal Dancing Competition. KSVS has won great recognition from parents and the community. Wu expressed his gratitude toward President Wu and his administrative team for their efforts over the past two years; he will order relevant units to study carefully the improvement proposals by the school.

The warmest moment was when Wu met students and asked them to share their ambitions in a discussion. Peng, Yi-Zhe of the Information Department said he wants to be a show business artist in Korea; Chen, Zhe-Wei of the Aborigine’s Talent Class said he wants to preserve Taiwan’s traditional culture, and his classmate Gao Zhi-ming said she wants to study at the Police University and be a police officer in the future; some wants to serve the country as a professional soldier, while some wants to be an engineer, a water management expert. When Wu asked what should be improved in their school, students vigorously expressed their ideas: They want the dorm’s bathrooms and toilets to be properly maintained; they want a basketball court that will not hold water on the ground after raining, a court that can sustain rain so they can still practice dancing without the influence of bad weather. They would love to have a larger library with more collection of books, the current library is small and located in the basement; the connecting part of the school buildings has a serious water-leaking problem, and the facility of the Refrigeration Department is too old. Students expressed freely, informing Wu the problems existing in their learning environment.

The third stop was NTTUSPS, which was founded for only one year and 7 months. The school is still under construction, so Pei Nan Junior High School is used as a venue temporarily for students to have lessons. Before President Wu, Yong-Yi started the briefing, he shared how Director-General Wu suprised him twice in the past. The first time was when Wu personally called him on January 1st. The second time was a few days ago when President Wu got a birthday card from him. President Wu said that currently the school’s construction is ahead of the schedule and is expected to be completed by the end of June. In August, newly enrolled students will be able to use the new campus. Thanks to the assistance from the top in the implementation of construction, the school is operating smoothly. The only issue is that students live quite far from the school and have to take the school bus, while most of them are from disadvantaged families and face the difficulty of paying for transportation. They would like to apply transportation subsidy, otherwise this would be something that they can not afford. As such, Deputy Director Wang, Chung-Cheng has requested the school to handle the issue as a special case. As for the desire to purchase a middle-sized school bus for students next semester, President Huang, Nai-Hui suggested that raising a fund from industries will be faster than applying for one from the Executive Yuan. After the briefing, Director-General Wu held a meeting with four first-year senior high school students; he tried to understand the problems in their life and learning and to cheer them up. Student Lin, Zhi-Yin said she has a keen interest in modern dance and has won the third place in a dance competition; Huang, Li-Ting said she is interested in baking, and she would like to develop more skills.

It was 4:30 in the afternoon after Wu left NTTUSPS to NTPEHS. President Huang, Jing-Yu gave a detailed briefing, and stated the challenges that are currently confronting the school’s development. He emphasized the fact that though the school tries to recruit students nationwide, most elites are retained in their original city/county instead being sent to NTPEHS for professional training. During the meeting, educational inspector Shen, Xi-Nan also reminded to pay attention to the management of campus security. In the end, Director-General Wu used the baseball player’s sudden accident as an example to make a case that that schools shall handle such issue with cautious approaches; NTPEHS and CKVS should work together to assist parents. Hopefully, NTPEHS’s administrative staff can cooperate with one heart to make the school better and conquer environmental limitations. K-12 Education Administration and Sports Administration will also collaborate to assist NTPEHS’s future development.

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